


Conceptually Sound But Structurally Unstable

by amcw177



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Excessive Swearing, M/M, Some Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-27
Updated: 2009-06-27
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7703242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amcw177/pseuds/amcw177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gokudera finds himself out of a place to stay. He seeks shelter at Namimori High and gets more than he's bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No rest for the wicked

**Author's Note:**

> **Beware:** This is a repost form Livejournal. I'm trying to move all my fics here.
> 
> Inspired by the prompt 'Hibari/Gokudera, under the same roof' at [Porn Battle on IJ](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/porn_battle/%22)
> 
> Beta by [kentucka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kentucka/pseuds/kentucka) and wayya @ LJ

It was a sure bet from the beginning that this whole thing wasn't going to work out. It was an emergency-back-up-if-everything-else-fails-last-resort kind of thing.

Plus, it wasn't as if Gokudera had planned on blowing up his apartment building.

He _had_ been planning on blowing up his stupid neighbour's dog, however. The damned thing kept barking all through the night - which resulted in Gokudera getting next to no sleep and hence being even grumpier and more easily annoyed than usual.

It turned out this dog was very good at throw-and-fetch games. And very obedient. And surprisingly careful to bring all the dynamite back to Gokudera's door.

Good thing bathtubs were very sturdy.

Bad thing was that now, Gokudera was one roof over his head short. Not that this was a first, but it was a first to have something like friends he could ask to help him out.

The baseball idiot had offered initially but half their house was occupied by the sushi shop and what wasn't was probably used as a storage facility for things Gokudera thought nobody could possibly associate with food. And he sure as hell wasn't going to sleep next to that. Besides, half a day in the presence of Yamamoto the younger was already enough to make his nerves go haywire - let alone 24/7 exposure.

So he stayed at the Tenth's house - for one night. The second night he spent on a makeshift bed in the garden shed because the stupid cow and the little girl were louder than any human beings had the right to be. And they were considerably less good at throw-and-fetch.

The third night he spent in the locker room at Namimori High.

Blessed silence descended upon the empty school building as the sun set outside and Gokudera tried to make himself comfortable in a corner - hidden from any incidental glances but close enough so he would notice any unwanted company.

"Finally", Gokudera grumbled and wiggled into his sleeping bag (a thoughtful gift from Yamamoto's father because _'we can't have you sleeping on nothing but the stone-cold floor, now, can we?'_ ).

He was just about to drift off to sleep - and god knew he needed it after several nights of barely getting a shuteye - when something flew in through the window. Gokudera popped one eye open and caught a glimpse of something tiny and yellow and annoying.

And then the damned bird started chirping that godawful song.

"Fuck", Gokudera spat out and forced what he could of the sleeping bag over his head. Too bad nobody had invented sound-proof sleeping bags yet. And Gokudera swore the bird chirped even louder once it had settled down on the lockers right above Gokudera's head.

"Fucking bird", Gokudera snapped and threw his shoe at the yellow ball of feathers, "shut up!"

The shoe ricocheted off the locker and hit him in the head.

"Shit!" Gokudera exclaimed, rubbing at what was certainly going to be a bruise. And he'd be damned if that wasn't Hibird freaking laughing at him. Well, at least the pet had some kind of identifiable humour.

"Shut the fuck up, you freaking failure of nature", Gokudera ground out while aiming for Hibird's new position a few lockers away with the second shoe.

"What are you doing in here?"

Gokudera jumped at the sudden interruption but it was too late. The shoe made an awry curve and bounced off the locker right next to Hibari's head. The boy didn't even flinch.

"I'm trying to get some sleep. I thought that was obvious what with the sleeping bag and all", Gokudera refused to be intimidated - which was mostly due to lack of sleep and therefore lack of working brain cells.

"Entering the school premises after nightfall is prohibited", Hibari stated dryly, "get out of here or I'll bite you to death."

Interestingly enough Gokudera actually considered leaving. No amount of sleep was worth getting beaten up by Hibari. But then he thought of the only possible place of shelter he had left and discarded the idea of running. He was so not going to sleep over at Bianchi's.

"Look", Gokudera heaved a sigh, "I won't do anything but sleep here, promise. And it'll be just for tonight, alright? If I'm breaking any rules, hell, see if I care. I'm too fucking tired to argue. If you wanna beat me up, go ahead. Unconsciousness is surely gonna help fix that sleeping deficit."

Hibari's eyes narrowed dangerously for a moment and Gokudera feared that he'd overdone it. He already saw the tonfas flashing in his mind. Well, he had been truthful about one thing - being knocked out was certainly going to help him get a good night's sleep.

After what felt like ages of intense staring Hibari suddenly eased up, a slightly disgusted expression on his face.

"Do what you will", he finally said.

Gokudera had to admit he was a little surprised. He would have bet that a thorough beating was imminent.

"So, I can stay?" he asked - a Yamamoto-esque question, really, but he just had to make sure.

Hibari gave an impossibly graceful shrug and turned away, Hibird happily settling on his shoulder on the way out.

"If I catch you wandering around I'll beat you dead", he added over his shoulder before disappearing into the hallway.

Gokudera gaped at the empty doorway for a few seconds and then realised that this had been the first time he had ever exchanged more than two words with the head of the disciplinary committee. And he was still alive, breathing was not difficult and all his body-parts were still where they were supposed to be. So, all in all that had gone rather well.

He just double-checked that the chair he lodged under the doorknob was securely in place. And that the windows were all closed.

He put two rounds of dynamite and the lighter right next to his improvised pillow, just to be safe. You never knew who decided to drop by.

\---

Of course, he didn't stay for just one night - because that would have meant that he had to move into Bianchi's apartment for an incalculable amount of time and the thought alone made Gokudera want to puke.

So he moved his sleeping berth to the boiler room. It was considerably darker down there but warm and comfortable, and if Gokudera was lucky Hibari would just assume that he was gone if the locker room was empty.

Gokudera should have known that luck didn't exactly have him on its Christmas gift list.

This time he did suffer a good beating. Fortunately, Hibari gave in to reason when Gokudera threatened to blow up the boiler. Anything to keep the school intact, right?

Surprisingly, he did let Gokudera stay for the rest of the night.

"Ha!" Gokudera growled when he slid back into his sleeping bag, ignoring the pain of a few bruised ribs, "take that, you asshole."

Of course, he'd waited for Hibari to be out of earshot before revelling in his triumph.

He slept with a bar of dynamite in one hand and the lighter in the other.

\---

The third night was a bit unfortunate.

Gokudera had devised a pretty nifty plan in order to stay out of Hibari's sight and had gone through painful lengths to install a vast early warning system that covered the entirety of the school grounds.

And it worked perfectly - until Gokudera accidentally ran into Hibari on his way to one of the bathrooms.

With one tonfa against his throat Hibari made him promise to replace the ruined basin, the dislodged door and the missing tiles.

He slept in the bathroom that night. Mainly because that was where he eventually fainted.


	2. Faulty statics

By the time Gokudera received the first confirmation from his landlord that reconstruction was underway, he'd lost count of the bruises, the fights and the times he'd moved his sleeping location.

What he failed to realise was that no matter how hard Hibari hit he always let Gokudera stay afterwards. Not without threatening to bite Gokudera to death should he see him again, of course. But to Gokudera's immense surprise that's all it was - a threat. Sure, it was a threat that hurt for several days and assumed interesting shades of black, green and purple over time but still - the rest of the nights Gokudera was good to stay.

Even Hibird appeared to be alright with Gokudera's presence. The fluffy thing seemed to have taken a liking to Gokudera - much to Gokudera's disdain because the insanely loud chirping was following him around everywhere he went. Fortunately, Gokudera was getting better at aiming. The downside was that he was soon out of shoes.

After the first few nights Gokudera had decided to disregard all of Hibari's warnings of 'not wandering about'. He'd made a habit out of taking a stroll through the school building before going to sleep, enjoying the opportunity to smoke in the teacher's room, rifle through the archives and leave unloved classmates interesting gifts in their desks.

It was no use trying to hide from Hibari anyway. Gokudera had found out the hard way that Hibari would even be able to find a misplaced grain of sand in his beloved school - and Gokudera was slightly more distinctive than that. So, he went with the flow and after a while he was downright looking forward to meeting the much feared prefect. This might have been due to his evasive manoeuvres causing the tonfas to miss more often than actually hit these days.

As to why Hibari was still tolerating Gokudera hanging around the school at night he could only guess. It wasn't as if Hibari was easy to read. Except, maybe, during their little fights. Gokudera had come to learn the difference between a 'Close one' and a 'You're so dead' smile - and that was already a lot more than Gokudera had thought he would ever be able to tell.

But Gokudera took those fights for what they were: a good opportunity to train. If he could survive fighting Hibari in his school, damaging his property, he could survive anything.

He just had to keep an eye on his bank account. Those repairs were fucking expensive.

\---

It was roughly five weeks after he'd heard from his landlord when Gokudera was aimlessly wandering the corridors of the empty school again.

He discarded his ideas of how to properly light the new workbench he was going to need when he passed by the reception room. There was light seeping into the corridor through the crack under the door. Gokudera stopped and contemplated looking inside but that meant possibly encountering a pissed-off Hibari. He hadn't forgotten the first time they had wandered into that room in search of a proper hide-out. It had also been the last time. A repetition of that incident wasn't exactly on Gokudera's to-do list.

So, when the door suddenly opened Gokudera stood there, gaping at Hibari like a deer caught in the headlights.

"You're still here", Hibari stated. It was impossible to tell if he was angry, annoyed, sleepy or freaking anything.

"Uhm...", was Gokudera's most eloquent answer. The air smelled of tonfas and blood and a whole new world of pain.

"Didn't I tell you not to wander about?" Hibari stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind him - successfully shutting out the light. But that was a minor detail. Gokudera was pretty sure that even in broad daylight he wouldn't have seen that blow coming.

Gokudera's back connected painfully with the opposite wall while he was still trying to figure out why he was so damned surprised to find Hibari in the reception room. This was his room after all. Everybody knew that.

That, however, didn't change the fact that Hibari seemed determined to beat him off the school grounds for good this time.

Gokudera only half-dodged a swing - managing to get hit on the back of his head and in the face. It made his vision blur and he stumbled forward, desperately searching for his lighter and the spare explosives he'd come to carry with him even at night.

He lost his footing when one of the tonfas crashed into his back. With a breathless cough he was thrown against the door of the reception room, the ignited bar of dynamite slipping from his hand.

For the record: they were both not quick enough to get out of the way in time.

It gave Gokudera an odd sort of satisfaction later on. But first he was catapulted into the reception room, with the door shattering into a thousand pieces in the process. Many of the wooden splinters lodged themselves into the couch, crashed through the windows, caused the slide projector to go up in flames and pierced the casing of the computer stashed under the desk near the windows.

It really was a fairly impressive explosion.

When Gokudera came to a few minutes later he was lying on his back on a carpet full of spiky wooden shards with one furious Hibari Kyouya on top of him, trying to strangle him with his tonfas.

"I told you not to wander", Hibari hissed and that was probably the first time Gokudera had ever truly seen the guy angry. Everything else was just several stages of annoyance. This was something entirely different. Something that ripped off limbs and promised a painful and slow death.

"I- I didn't mean t- to", Gokudera choked out, clutching at the cold steel pressing down on his throat.

"I'll bite you dead", Hibari leaned down, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Now, Gokudera was a reasonably good fighter. Certainly not as good as Hibari but he did know his way around in a fight - even if he didn't have any explosives handy. 'Good' not necessarily meaning 'fair', though.

Gokudera abandoned his grip on the tonfas and instead grasped the nearest and hardest object he could reach. It turned out to be one of the table lamps that had been blasted off its original place by the explosion.

It took three hits to the head to knock Hibari out.

\---

Gokudera was picking random shards of glass and wood off his pants when Hibari woke up. Nobody who had been unconscious for this long had the right to be so immediately alert, Gokudera thought, but there he was - Hibari Kyouya, in all his pissed-off glory.

Luckily, Gokudera had found a good amount of extra-long LAN cables to tie Hibari up with before settling down by the window and lighting the cigarette that was now hanging loosely between his fingers.

Hibari didn't say anything, just glared at Gokudera as if he could make the Half-Italian evaporate on the spot. With a bit of practice, Gokudera figured, he would.

"So that's why you're always around", Gokudera finally said, pointing at something he'd only become aware of after he'd successfully shoved Hibari off of him - and regained a bit of feeling in his limbs. There was a blanket spread out on the couch, a pillow, something that could have passed as a nightstand. A bit of poking around had revealed some clothes in one of the lockers in the corner.

"You've been sleeping here too, haven't you?" Gokudera couldn't hide a smile. He didn't know if it was triumphant, understanding or pitiful. Probably all three.

Hibari's eyes shone with spite. Chances were that he didn't like anyone finding out about this improvised sleeping arrangement - but then again, what did Hibari Kyouya ever like for people to find out about him?

Gokudera sighed, extinguishing his cigarette on the window frame - since the reception room was in bits and pieces anyway. "You should have said something. I could have brought milk and cookies."

He grinned but it turned awry when Hibari struggled against his bonds and almost got a hand free.

Gokudera slid off the window sill and stepped up to the couch from where Hibari was scowling up at him, "how long have you been sleeping here?"

To his surprise Hibari stopped fidgeting for a moment and looked away, his bangs hiding his usually watchful eyes.

"That long, huh?"

Gokudera let out a deep breath and wondered what the hell had come over him when he knelt down and grasped Hibari's chin, forcing the older boy to look at him, "alright. If I promise not to tell anyone will you leave me alone when I cut you loose?"

He did almost lose a finger to the bite that followed but the shrug Hibari gave after that was the closest thing to a positive answer Gokudera would get.

He worked Hibari out of the tangled mess of cables and got thanked with a right-handed punch that would have made even Ryohei proud.

"Ouch! What the fuck?" Gokudera laid sprawled on the floor with Hibari towering over him, "you said you would leave me alone, you bastard!"

"I didn't", Hibari's voice was a lot more level than it had any right to be in a situation like this, "and that was for ruining the reception room. I'll have you p-"

"Yeah, yeah", Gokudera scrambled up from the floor, rubbing his aching jaw, "I'll pay for it. Dammit."

"Get out", Hibari commanded and Gokudera knew better than to test his luck. LAN cables would only do the trick every so often.

\---

He didn't come across Hibari even once in the following nights. He did stay clear of the reception room, though.

But after two weeks of not meeting the head of the disciplinary committee at all curiosity, sadly, got the better of him. Besides, he slept a lot more soundly when he knew where Hibari was.

He did pack a reasonably large amount of explosives - just in case.


	3. Oscillation and perception

"Hmpf!" Gokudera wasn't quite sure what he'd been meaning to shout but that was what came out of his mouth when he landed face-first on the roof of the school.

Apparently, he had successfully managed to locate Hibari - and seconds later his right knee had also confirmed the exact position of one of the tonfas. Quite painfully so.

"Goddammit!", he huffed as he wriggled onto his back, carefully prodding his nose, "it's just me, asshole."

Hibari had the decency to actually cock an eyebrow - a nice break from the usual scowl.

"So?" Hibari asked, not even lowering his tonfas.

"Means there was no need to attack me like that", Gokudera grumbled while staggering to a standing position. He wondered briefly if Shamal had a spare kneecap lying around somewhere because _damn_ that hurt.

"You're not allowed on the roof", Hibari simply stated as if that alone explained the entire world.

"Neither are you", Gokudera said before he could stop himself, "theoretically, at least."

"I have to make sure nobody enters the roof without permission."

"That does include _you_ , you know?", Gokudera hobbled towards the balustrade and plopped down on the ground, massaging his knee. It earned him a disapproving glance from his school mate but at least the tonfas disappeared. Gokudera was shocked to find that it would have been quite interesting to know where the heck Hibari hid them on his person all this time. And if that was uncomfortable.

He refrained from asking, though. He might have had a certain tendency to throw himself into harm's way but suicide was not yet on his agenda.

Instead he jerked his head toward a small package lying a little way off, "I brought a peace offering but I guess it's ruined now."

Hibari eyed the package as if it was going to jump up and bite him any moment - which was a hilarious thought seeing as how it contained a bunch of dead fish and rice.

"Yamamoto's dad recently keeps insisting on bringing me sushi", Gokudera winced when his kneecap sent a particularly violent jolt of pain through his body, "I'm not exactly a fan of sushi but I can't freaking get him to stop. So I thought you might like some."

"If there's still enough left to scrape off the floor, that is", he added.

Hibari gave him a long look that could have meant pretty much anything, from _'Why are you talking, herbivore?'_ to _'Interesting. I might kill you after dinner.'_.

Then he honestly surprised Gokudera by picking up the package and unfolding the somewhat dishevelled plastic wrapping. He sniffed at the contents and then selected a sushi roll, thoroughly inspected it and - after determining that it did not require any beating to death - actually started chewing on it.

Gokudera couldn't help but grin, "sorry for not bringing any chopsticks."

Hibari snorted but put another piece of sushi in his mouth. Gokudera was the last person to be called an expert on the subject of sushi but he figured if the infamous Hibari Kyouya didn't make any disgusted faces, then Yamamoto's dad had to be pretty darn good.

Gokudera hesitantly put some weight on his knee but when the pain almost made him wail he decided that sitting on the roof of Namimori High for another, oh, five days or so, was perhaps a good idea. He was going to limp for quite some time.

He tried not to be hypnotized by Hibari eating sushi - a fascinating process, by the way; like watching a stream carve its way through a valley in time lapse - and reached for his packet of smokes to distract himself.

"No smoking on the school grounds", Hibari glared at him.

"Come on", Gokudera all but whined, "one cigarette isn't going to set the school on fire."

"Not if I don't want it", he added with a smirk.

Hibari made a disapproving noise but shrugged in wordless permission while nibbling on another piece of dead fish. Gokudera gladly lit his cigarette and used the moments of silence to wonder how Hibari could make eating sushi seem like an art. Normally, everything involving sushi made Gokudera either want to set up an instant cooking isle or to be at the other end of the room. He'd watched Yamamoto and the others eat those insults to high cuisine countless times but never had he thought of it as anything else than disgusting. Until now, it seemed.

As if on cue, Gokudera's stomach gave a low rumble. He hadn't eaten anything before going to look for Hibari - mostly, because he hadn't counted on being stuck on the roof in the process.

Hibari shot him a questioning glance.

"Sorry", Gokudera mumbled with an apologetic smile, "lunch was way back."

Hibari looked him up and down before heaving a tiny sigh. He reached into one of his pockets - making Gokudera tense up for fear of being faced with... what? Mini-tonfas? Hell, this guy was making him way too jumpy. Contrary to the deadly weapons Gokudera had half-expected, Hibari produced a still packaged muesli bar.

"Here", he offered the small snack to Gokudera without even looking.

"Erm...", Gokudera stared at the item, unsure of what to do, "thank you."

His grumbling stomach opted for accepting the offer while his brain was still working its way through _'Oh my god, Hibari Kyouya just gave me a muesli bar!'_.

And then Gokudera's brain got stuck altogether because without a single word Hibari suddenly slid down to the ground to sit beside him.

"Stop gaping or I'll knock that jaw of yours shut", Hibari scowled.

Gokudera instantly closed his mouth.

They sat there in silence, each chewing on their own substitute for a dinner before Gokudera blurted out, "I didn't know you liked muesli bars."

 _I didn't know you liked **anything**_ , he added in his mind.

Hibari shrugged, "I don't. Hibird likes them."

"Oh", Gokudera eloquently provided and then couldn't hide a devious grin. Good, if he ate that damned bird's food he wasn't going to have to put up with the annoying chirping any longer.

Hibari neatly folded up the plastic wrapper once he was finished, spit into it and held it out to Gokudera - who stared at it as if he was facing a two-headed dog.

"The cigarette", Hibari explained but didn't even care to look at him, "you're not putting it out on the roof of my school."

Gokudera's look wavered between the roof, the plastic in Hibari's hand and Hibari himself.

"I'm dreaming, right?" Gokudera frowned.

Hibari gave him a sideways glance.

"You knocked me out and now I'm hallucinating or something. Is that it?"

"Why would you think that?" Hibari fully turned to face him, something other people might have called confusion mirroring in his expression.

"Because, clearly, this can't be happening", Gokudera reasoned but put out his cigarette in the plastic wrapper nevertheless. "See, I could have gone along with the muesli bar. A bit random, but okay. It's the improvised ashtray thing that gave you away."

Hibari blinked a couple of times and then confusion slowly gave way for something pretty much everybody would have called anger.

"Get off my roof", Hibari growled.

"Why?" Gokudera happily chatted on, "you're nothing but a figment of my imagination. You're probably dragging my unconscious body down the stairs right now to bury me somewhere around the sports field."

"That can be arranged."

The tonfas hit him twice with full force, sending him skittering over the roof.

"See? That's more like it", Gokudera slurred before he passed out with a maniacal grin on his face.

\---

Gokudera appreciated Yamamoto-san's efforts, really, he did. But if he was forced to eat one more mouthful of sushi he was going to grow a fishtail and gills - however helpful during swimming practice that might have been.

So he kept leaving the sushi boxes in front of the reception room. In the morning they were always gone.

One morning Gokudera found a small green out-door ashtray in front of the door with a note attached to it:

_One more cigarette stump on the roof and I will bite you dead. - H._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For whoever's been wondering about the title: neuronal oscillation describes a short time window in our brain that holds back visual information for a brief moment to allow the corresponding sound to catch up. Since light travels faster than sound we would constantly be getting visuals with delayed sound otherwise.
> 
> Oscillation in general is a rather broad term, used in many scientific fields and often rather differently. It is mostly used to characterize some sort of wave activity, vibration or fluctuation.


	4. The bigger they are, the harder they fall

Winter settled in with chilling winds and the occasional snowflakes, and effectively confined Gokudera inside. Since it was so unpleasant outside he'd taken to snuggling up in his sleeping bag near the boiler room with a book from the library and some pastries Nana was now sending him via the Tenth. According to the Tenth she was worried that he didn't eat enough.

Gokudera had no idea how pastries were supposed to help with his nutrition but contrary to sushi he did actually like them.

He was halfway through 'Foucault's Pendulum' when Hibird fluttered in.

Gokudera glanced up with a frown, "you again, huh?"

Hibird chirped and made itself comfortable next to one of the massive candles Gokudera had put up because a) the artificial light in the cellar was much too bright and b) he wasn't allowed to blow shit up and hence had to find another way to put his pyromaniac tendencies to good use.

"You realise you're within reach, don't you?" Gokudera couldn't believe he was talking to a goddamned bird but he figured if Hibird had at least half as much personality as its owner that was alright. "And this book here is pretty thick."

Hibird fluffed up its feathers, eyed him sleepily and then literally _started to snore_.

Gokudera slid lower in his sleeping bag, leaned back and let the open book drop onto his face, "I hate this bird."

"He can hear you, you know."

"What the f- Shit!" Gokudera screamed as the book slipped from his hands and knocked over two candles which set his sleeping bag on fire.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck!" He staggered up and started stomping onto the flaming bits of cloth - until he was engulfed in a cloud of white extinguishant.

"No open fire", Hibari said when he put down the fire extinguisher. Somewhere in the pile of white a small heap chirped angrily.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Gokudera huffed while plucking extinguishant out of his hair, "I could have suffocated from that stuff."

Hibari arched an eyebrow.

"Also, you ruined my sleeping bag", Gokudera pointed an accusatory finger at what he supposed was the object in question - for lack of seeing it under all the foam.

"Then go sleep somewhere else. I don't care", Hibari concluded, "open fire is strictly prohibited on the school grounds."

"I have no sleeping bag, asshole. I can't go anywhere else, even if I wanted to."

Hibari's eyes wandered to where the sleeping bag was hidden under the slowly liquidifying extinguishant and frowned.

Ten minutes later Gokudera once again found himself in a hallucination - only he couldn't for the life of him remember when Hibari had knocked him out. He was lying on the (new) carpet in the reception room, enveloped in a scratchy blanket and a purple pillow under his head - with freaking Hibari Kyouya on the couch right next to him.

"I'm going insane", he mumbled whilst staring at the (partially new) ceiling.

"Shut up or I'll bite you dead."

\---

Gokudera was woken by a hand steadily shaking him by the shoulder.

"Huh? Wha-?" he mumbled, squinting against the bright light - and into Yamamoto's agonizingly happy face.

"Morning", Yamamoto smiled, "you better get up, it's almost time for classes."

"Huh?", Gokudera repeated dumbly, trying to force his brain cells awake. Somehow he remembered going to sleep in the reception room and not... _in front of it_?

"What happened? What am I doing here?" Gokudera glanced around, receiving strange looks from school mates passing by.

"I don't know but you sure look like you've had a rough night", the baseball idiot grinned, urging Gokudera to get up.

"Yeah, kind of... wait", Gokudera stilled and slowly turned around to glare at the door of the reception room.

"That fucking bastard", he hissed before he launched himself at the closed door, "he threw me out. Fucking threw me out in the middle of the night! Asshole!"

Yamamoto dragged him away before he could be held responsible for yet another shattered door. "Calm down, Gokudera. He's not in there."

"I don't care!" Gokudera wailed, kicking and scratching at anything remotely attached to the baseball brat. "I'm gonna kill him!"

"Why?" Yamamoto laughed, "the way I see it, it could have gone a lot worse."

It took Gokudera a few moments before it dawned on him that, for once, the baseball freak was right. He went slack in Yamamoto's grasp and gaped wide-eyed at the closed door. Hibari wasn't known for doing anything half-heartedly and leaving someone on the corridor and not beating the shit out of them strangely felt like it.

"But-... but-", Gokudera gestured warily at the reception room, trying to understand why he wasn't dead yet.

Yamamoto laughed his annoying laugh of blissful ignorance and kept pulling at Gokudera's... _oh dear god_. Hibari had thrown him out _in his pajamas_.

"Nice pants!" 

Gokudera shot the group of first-years a scorching glance that shut them up immediately but certainly didn't keep them from spreading the news.

"The bastard needs to _die_ , dammit", he growled while stalking towards the stairs to the cellar. He just hoped his clothes had survived last night's extinguisher incident.

\---

"You threw me out!" Gokudera yelled in between explosions - and just for good measure he added, "stronzo!"

"You were snoring", Hibari said calmly, not in the slightest irritated by the couple of bombs that had just ripped apart most of the corridor.

"Vaffanculo", Gokudera snarled and spat on the floor like a rightfully pissed-off Italian before he plastered the rest of the corridor with dynamite.

"Dare you to make me pay for _that_ ", he shouted triumphantly after the noise had died down. He peered through the slowly dissolving smoke, expecting to see Hibari beaten and on the ground somewhere among the debris.

"I will", a steady voice stated behind him.

Well, he should have known better. But in his defence, the explosion hadn't left Hibari unscathed. And hadn't Gokudera's head made painful contact with Hibari's tonfas at that moment, he probably would have noticed numerous scratches and bruises all over the other boy's body. It would have given him a great deal of satisfaction - if he'd been lucid long enough to bask in it.

\---

When Gokudera woke up he was still lying in the devastated corridor with a note stuck to his shirt stating the name, address and phone number of a construction company.

He took the piece of paper and set it on fire.

"Per dio, ti odio, Hibari Kyouya", Gokudera hissed through his teeth and waited for his head to stop spinning.


	5. Wrecker's ball

Gokudera knew that things were bad when he started cursing in Italian. It was a wonderful language for insulting people - very imaginative swear words.

He tended to think about Hibari in Italian a lot lately.

While making himself busy in the canteen kitchen his mind came up with ever more interesting ways of giving Hibari Kyouya a particularly horrible and painful death. He was roasting a piece of salmon he'd salvaged from being forced into a roll of rice when the subject of his most violent thoughts appeared.

The only thing that saved Hibari from a half-done fish in his face was the fact that Gokudera thought him unworthy of coming into contact with his cooking.

"Let me guess", Gokudera frowned, "no using the kitchen after hours?"

"That too", Hibari answered, "I smelled something."

Gokudera snorted and carefully positioned the roasted fish on a delicately garnished plate. "I bet you did. It's called food. Real food. That requires actual cooking."

He turned around with the plate in his hands and found the other boy sitting by the counter - curiously gazing at him.

"What?". Gokudera grumbled when he positioned himself a little way off.

"I gave you a muesli bar", Hibari said matter-of-factly.

"So?"

"You owe me."

Gokudera almost sputtered fish all over the counter, "are you kidding me?"

Hibari only gave him a blank look. No, kidding was really not something he was known for.

Gokudera sighed and put his knife and fork on the plate. He sent it skidding over to where Hibari was sitting.

He should have poisoned the freaking fish.

Hibari and food was a wonder of nature as Gokudera assessed moments later. He couldn't put his finger on it but something about the way Hibari regarded food before finally deeming it worthy of entering his digestive system was incredibly... _serene_.

Gokudera watched as his school mate took a tentative bite, chewed a lot more than was strictly necessary for a piece of fish and then swallowed with an expression on his face that varied between disgust and approval.

"It's... greasy", Hibari ascertained.

Despite his earlier thoughts of bloody murder Gokudera noticed a smile forming on his lips, "that happens when you roast things."

"Is it supposed to taste like lemons too?"

"Yep", Gokudera straightened up and strolled over to Hibari, fetching his plate back, "lemons, pepper, basil, whatever I could find."

"How do you know this will all work together?"

Gokudera shrugged, speaking through a mouthful of baked potato, "ift's the fmell."

Hibari's eyebrows shot up.

"It's the smell", Gokudera tried again after swallowing, "if something doesn't appeal to our sense of smell we won't eat it. That's the reason why I don't get why you guys love sushi so much. It doesn't _smell_ right."

Gokudera shook his head, continuing to dig in. He failed to figure out when his evening of conspiracy to murder had turned into a lecture about cuisine.

Meanwhile, Hibari watched him finish his meal in silence - which was fortunate because this way Gokudera was able to ignore him most of the time. Except for when Hibari moved. Or breathed.

Eventually, the plate was empty and Gokudera reached past the head of the disciplinary committee for the pile of napkins.

"Sorry, but-", he didn't get any further. All of a sudden Gokudera had a hand fisted in his shirt and a pair of surprisingly soft lips pressing down on his own.

Until then Gokudera had never thought that anything besides a direct hit to the head would ever leave him so completely speechless - and make him look like an utter idiot in the process.

"I can taste the lemons", Hibari glanced sideways, brow furrowed in thought while licking his lips, "and... oregano."

Gokudera just stood there, half-lying on the counter, blinking at the other boy like a brainless cow and said nothing. He wondered if being shot had the same effect. But somehow he doubted that dying made his lips tingle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

While Gokudera was busy looking dumbstruck Hibari slid off his stool and placed a napkin in front of him, "you're drooling."

And that was that. He was out the door before any of Gokudera's brain cells could formulate a decently witty reply.

On the other hand, what was an eloquent answer to being kissed by the school's most feared student?

"Bwzuh?" was probably not it but that was what echoed through the empty canteen shortly before Gokudera decided that insanity tasted a lot like Hibari Kyouya.

\---

It didn't take Gokudera roughly two weeks to come to terms with what had happened - because he didn't get his head around the whole thing _at all_. He hadn't wasted much thought on the infamous protector of Namimori until now. But the more time passed the less Gokudera liked the direction his thoughts went. For the most part they loved to settle on the memory of remarkably soft lips on his and jet-black hair that sure felt quite amazing, having it slip through his fingers...

Fact was, on the best of days Gokudera’s mental health resembled a house of cards on a rail track - and Hibari Kyouya was one fucking fast train.

The issue of 'boys vs. girls' had never really come up so far but he figured both were equally bad choices as partners, so there. It might not have been a well-defined and thoroughly tested theory yet but Gokudera supposed now was as good a time as any to find out. And perhaps Hibari wasn't such a bad start, after all. It could only get less lethal from there.

After two and a half weeks of being irritable, fidgety and less than watchful over the Tenth he decided that two could play that game. He'd always had a problem with keeping his mouth shut anyway, so why start now? There was a question he longed to ask that black-haired bastard: _What - the - fuck?_

Well, nobody ever said it was a particularly _refined_ question.


	6. Motivation

Gokudera chose a rather unconventional weapon to straighten out the situation - cooking.

He thought it a good idea because for one, it usually calmed his nerves and two, it seemed to intrigue Hibari somehow. Perhaps more in the way that a biologist was interested in the eating habits of stag beetles but if that was what would get Gokudera his answers it would have to do.

So he cooked. He spent hours in the kitchen after dark, and shortly before midnight he had finally produced something to his liking - the best freaking lasagne this brat was ever going to taste. And most likely, the only one.

He set the full plate on the counter and waited. It felt like baiting a wild animal - an allegory Gokudera found quite fitting. Hibari had proven on more than one occasion that he was capable of putting even the most ferocious animals on this planet to shame.

And apparently, their sense of smell too. Minutes after Gokudera had finished Hibird fluttered in through the grand doors of the hall, swiftly followed by its owner.

"Gotcha", Gokudera grinned from where he'd been hiding in the kitchen and pressed the button to detonate the explosives he'd arranged all around the hall.

\---

The smoke cleared and revealed a battered and bruised yet distinctly unhappy Hibari. He was crouched down on the counter, eyeing Gokudera like a hawk.

"Ready to talk now?" Gokudera asked with a knowing smile, explosives at the ready. It didn't take much to guess Hibari's answer.

The first tonfa was thrown and missed by barely an inch but the second hit even harder, knocking Gokudera off balance. He regained his footing behind one of the food trolleys and sent it skidding in Hibari's direction.

Hibari stopped it carelessly with his foot. He failed to notice the bars of dynamite swiftly lodging themselves under the trolley.

The explosion sent it flying, effectively blocking Hibari's view - and forcing him to back away and towards the second stash Gokudera had hidden under the counter.

The trolley cluttered to the floor, bent and partially melted in all kinds of strange ways. Hibari was back on the counter, smiling as if having half the kitchen exploding around him was nothing but a minor disturbance. But that was Hibari's way of dealing with the world - either it addressed him directly or it had better shut the fuck up.

Gokudera grinned triumphantly. "Sleep well."

\---

Having the counter replaced was going to be a bother but Gokudera thought it was a thousand times worth it. The normally smooth metal surface was sporting a giant and ragged hole in it, almost like a volcano. And a few feet away, between a couple of bent and broken tables lay Hibari Kyouya - successfully knocked out by an exploding kitchen counter.

The good thing about being an explosives expert was that he knew how to turn random equipment into weapons.

Gokudera gloated unabashedly while walking over to the unconscious boy.

"Now who's gonna get bitten", Gokudera smirked and tentatively leaned over his school mate.

He hadn't counted on getting an answer but he did anyway.

The force of the tonfa sent him flying backwards, his back painfully connecting with one of the overturned tables. Within seconds Hibari was on top of him, one tonfa braced against Gokudera's neck, the other hand empty and seemingly useless. Until it fisted in Gokudera's hair.

The only warning Gokudera got was a sly smile that he never would have thought the damned skylark capable of. Then he had a whole lot of Hibari pressing down on him, his lips firmly on Gokudera's.

Gokudera struggled and if he had really wanted to get out of there he could have. The thing was, he didn't _want to_. Not necessarily, not when Hibari's lips were soft and warm and promising and made Gokudera's entire body tingle with anticipation.

Hibari let his tongue swipe over Gokudera's lips once more before he sat up, eyeing him from above. "Shame. You don't taste like lemons this time."

Gokudera blinked, slightly out of breath and croaking from the pressure of the tonfa still resting against his skin, "sorry to disappoint...?"

Hibari gave a casual shrug and went back to kissing Gokudera senseless. He took Gokudera's attempted protest as an invitation and pushed his tongue inside, rendering the younger boy literally speechless. But Gokudera wasn't going to give in that easily - not even when his eyes had fallen shut and his heart was surely skipping the occasional beat.

He forcefully pushed Hibari away, finally getting that fucking tonfa off his neck. "Wait a minute. What the hell's even going on here?"

Hibari gave him a questioning look.

"Why did you even let me stay in the first place?"

Hibari actually seemed to give this some thought. "It's boring here at night. And you're just one person. You're not crowding."

Gokudera's eyes went wide, "do you always kiss people when you're bored?"

"No", Hibari stated as if he was answering a questionnaire, "I wanted to know what you're about. Why that baby keeps tolerating you."

"That b-", Gokudera's mind caught up, "what? So this was a... a _test_?"

"I was bored."

Gokudera realised that terms that had a certain significance for the rest of the world didn't necessarily have the same meaning for Hibari. Like boredom. When other people were bored they took up crossword puzzles or painting or freaking golf. Hibari went and started violent fights, damaged half his beloved school and then some and obviously liked to test out Gokudera's limits.

"O... kay?". Gokudera cocked his head to the side, "well, did I at least pass your test?"

Hibari gave him a pending look that betrayed absolutely nothing of what the boy was thinking - as usual.

"You're not done yet", he concluded and was back in Gokudera's lap, pulling him into a most demanding kiss.

That was another thing about the infamous prefect Gokudera had come to learn. Hibari didn't make suggestions or asked for permission - he spoke in facts. And as soon as the words had left the boy's mouth that was what they were - facts. Reality simply adjusted.


	7. Out of service

Gokudera was a bright kid. He wasn't Einstein but he easily outsmarted pretty much anyone of his age. Hence, he found the amount of time his brain was taking to process the fact that he was being dragged towards the reception room by the collar of his shirt highly unnerving.

Well, when all was said and done he had been asking for it. Sort of.

_"Stop, stop... Stop, dammit!" he'd said._

_"Why?"_

_"Not here."_

_Hibari's attentive eyes had scanned the rubble that was the school's canteen._

_"It's a kitchen", Gokudera had stated. Kitchen areas were the next best thing to holy if there was no church handy._

_"It's destroyed."_

_"So? It's still a kitchen. People are supposed to eat in here."_

A moment later Hibari had grabbed a fistful of Gokudera's shirt and had tugged him out of the canteen. There was little he could do but hurry along, trying not to trip over his own feet. Hibari didn't leave much room for negotiations. Apparently, the sheer lack of countermeasures on Gokudera's part were regarded as more than enough consent.

Gokudera had to admit that when the (new) door of the reception room fell shut behind him and he was shoved against it with Hibari pressing into him it became somewhat difficult to even spell 'protest'.

Kissing Hibari was like a rollercoaster ride - there were those small, soft kisses that almost passed off as tender and then all of a sudden there was biting and growling and a scary willingness to hurt. And Gokudera took it all. He was making noises he hoped nobody would ever hold him responsible for, moans and needy little sounds in the back of his throat. He was rather surprised what Hibari's actions were able to evoke from his vocal chords.

He was desperately pulling at Hibari's shirt, ignoring the pain in his chest where the tonfa had hit him earlier. Hibari graciously took this task from him, sliding out of his torn shirt and throwing it carelessly to the ground.

And then it was payback time.

Being this close to several explosions had left its marks on Hibari's body. He was bleeding from numerous ragged cuts where splintered metal or wood had caught him and angry dark-red marks implied various cracked bones. Not that Gokudera minded - it was Hibari's own business if he decided to be suicidal or not - but what he did mind was the other youth's try to get back at him all in one go.

To Gokudera's shame, it was working.

"Ow!" Gokudera hissed, smacking his hand lightly across the back of the skylark’s head. Hibari ignored it and continued to bite, lick and kiss his way down the side of Gokudera's neck.

Yes, if this continued the way Gokudera imagined that it would, they were both going to be _very sore_ come morning.

Still, voicing more protest than an angered hiss every now and then at the increasingly violent bites was beyond Gokudera's ability to speak at that point. It wasn't as if he'd given his first time much thought before - it was just a small matter compared to the desire to become the Tenth's right hand man - but he certainly hadn't envisioned it to involve this level of pain. Come to think of it, he also hadn't imagined it involving _Hibari_ of all people.

But somehow, in a very disturbing way Gokudera was fast becoming used to the mixture of pain and pleasure that Hibari seemed to be very talented at invoking. He couldn't help but wonder how many times Hibari had done this before, or if at all. Who knew. With the skylark it might as well be just plain instinct - he appeared to have a lot of that.

By the time they stumbled away from the door and in the direction of the (surprisingly: new) couch, Hibari had him panting and blushing like a freaking virgin - which he was, as a matter of fact, but Gokudera just couldn't bring himself to point it out. It was either stupidity, stubbornness or the pure resolution to _never ever goddamn lose to the bloody skylark_. Or possibility number four - all of the above.

He tumbled and fell onto the couch, the angle awkward enough to make him wince. He strongly suspected one or two cracked ribs but it was impossible to say for certain. And when Hibari resolutely reached to undo Gokudera's pants his physical health generously took a back seat anyway.

Gokudera was this close to telling the other boy that he was still a damned virgin when his pants were pulled off in one swift move - his underwear right there with them. But his dumb pride prevented him from doing so. Plus, the last person he wanted to discuss his lack of sexual encounters with was fucking Hibari Kyouya. Never mind that the exact same person was about to deflower him.

He could have slapped himself for not saying anything. For once, blurting out what was on his mind would have been a good idea but his brain was taking this chance to go AWOL on him.

"You've never done this before", Hibari raised his eyebrows.

Gokudera swallowed and wondered what had given him away. He figured it was either the embarrassingly deep blush or the way he was clamping his legs shut like there was no tomorrow.

"Uhm..." he provided. He really really wanted to be bold and demanding and make Hibari freaking beg for it but to his disenchantment he found out that his subconscious was a lot more protective of his innocence than he had anticipated.

Hibari let his eyes linger on him for a while but then plopped down on the couch by Gokudera's feet without a word.

In his mind Gokudera went through a very impressive list of multilingual cuss words, silently cursing his own lack of forwardness. He wasn't afraid of sex, simply because he wasn't afraid of anything _goddammit_. But he couldn't deny a certain cautiousness when it came to... intimacy. So far it had never been a problem - the people he didn't want close were either too scared of him or, in Yamamoto's case, ignored all his warnings and groped him anyway. And as for those he did want close... well, they were few and mostly consisted of the Tenth.

But leaving now was like admitting defeat in the middle of battle and if there was one thing Gokudera despised it was running away from a fight. Especially when he was half-naked, red like a tomato, and rock-hard already.

"You're still here", Hibari noted after a few minutes of strained silence.

Gokudera sighed inwardly, gathered all his guts and smiled determinedly, "that's because you're not done yet."

For a brief moment Hibari looked as if he was contemplating beating Gokudera out of the room for throwing that line right back at him. But then he grasped Gokudera's right ankle and pulled so that there was no other choice but for Gokudera to spread his legs around the other boy.

Hibari generously overlooked the tiny yelp from Gokudera at the sudden movement.


	8. Unstoppable force meets immovable object

Gokudera was no expert but he was pretty sure sex between two males required something to facilitate friction - not that he didn't blush violently at the prospect of _where_ this friction was going to occur. But at least that was what he had heard. Well, he had been roaming certain parts of towns where talk about this was daily routine.

However, he did not want to know why Hibari had a tube of lube stuffed between the upholstery of the couch. But he sure was thankful for it.

Gokudera's shirt had yet to meet the same end as the rest of their clothes but it was unbuttoned now, reddish teeth marks sprouting all over his chest and sides. Hibari's trademark warning wasn't just a figure of speech, it seemed. He did very much enjoy biting.

In a way they had to credit Gokudera with the easy cosiness of the couch - after all, he'd picked it out. Although he never would have thought that he was ever going to pride himself for selecting a piece of furniture that would allow for Hibari to comfortably nestle between his legs.

Gokudera's experience with lube so far was limited to oiling machinery that was necessary to make his explosives but he never anticipated it to be so effing cold. Hibari's fingers were slick with the liquid when he trailed them down to Gokudera's ass. It didn't exactly help that Gokudera was a writhing, clawing, needy mess already.

Hibari's firm hand on his hips fixed that problem, though. He didn't wait long before he pushed one finger inside, causing Gokudera's breath to catch in his throat. Gokudera hissed out a couple of Italian curses because anything resembling Japanese was beyond him at the moment.

If he'd been asked he would have said that Hibari didn't care much for the feelings of others but it turned out that he was quite attentive. Whenever Gokudera opened his eyes he had Hibari's stale grey ones looking intently at him, as if studying a particularly fascinating statistic.

The fact that the head prefect was seemingly unperturbed by their actions infuriated Gokudera beyond belief.

Too bad he couldn't voice his anger what with all the pleasure soaring through his body. His fingertips dug into Hibari's shoulders when he felt a second finger slip inside. And, yes, he absolutely hoped to leave some bruises because Hibari so needed to learn that he wasn't the only one capable of adding a little pain into the mix.

Gokudera ached to touch himself but every time he tried his hand was swatted away and after the fifth futile attempt Hibari kept his wrists locked in an iron-tight grip above his head. Fucking control freak.

When Gokudera felt another finger penetrate him he couldn't hold back anymore. His inability to shut up got the better of him and he unapologetically started to moan, beg and curse at the top of his lungs. Whenever he wasn't out of breath, that was. Or being kissed.

Hibari hungrily swallowed most of his sensual groans, taking far too much time to work him open. In between, Gokudera kept uttering low pleas - low, because he made damned sure that the threats that were attached to most of his words were much louder.

To his surprise, after an insufferably long time of remaining blissfully deaf to Gokudera's demands, Hibari took pity on him - and Gokudera detested that term. The only thing that made the thought bearable was that as soon as Hibari withdrew his hand Gokudera noticed that the dark-haired boy only seemed calm and collected. His dick was as stiff as Gokudera's.

Well, at least _there_ was some sort of justice.

Gokudera squirmed on the couch, his hands still immovable due to Hibari's grip. He would have never willingly admitted that the lack of warmth and movement inside of him was regretful but, once again, his body betrayed him. His hips rocked unmistakably and the small whimpers that escaped him were a surefire tell.

Want, bodily desire and desperation aside - a warning would have been nice. But as with all things concerning Hibari there was only one way and if that wasn't clear, well, then that was your own problem.

When Hibari lined himself up with Gokudera’s ass and pushed in at once, Gokudera yelped and suddenly the urge to inch away was almost overwhelming.

"Fuck!" Gokudera gasped, his chest impossibly tight and the will to keep his legs spread quickly dissipating. Hibari was feeling generous though. He stayed still for what felt like entire hours.

And as soon as Gokudera had adjusted enough to regain his breath he was back to spitting out insults. He couldn't do anything about it - it came naturally to him.

"Goddammit, you fucking asshole. Give a guy a warning, will you?"

Hibari remained silent - a personality streak that was fast becoming a thorn in Gokudera's side. That obnoxious skylark had to have some sort of limit. Nobody could ever take so much pleasure all at once without even making so much as a single _comment_ on it.

On the other hand, Gokudera was doing a good job of being noisy enough for the both of them.

Hibari took Gokudera's newly found ability to speak for what it was - an order to get a fucking move on. He went slow at first, making Gokudera's fists curl helplessly above his head in an attempt to sort out the pleasure from the pain. Oddly considerate of the much feared boy, Gokudera mused.

The faster the thrusts came the more prominent was Gokudera's need to meet them and before he was even done figuring out what exactly he was doing Hibari's cock brushed against something inside of him that made him want to scream, beg, blow shit up, curse, love and hit that bastard - all at the same time.

Hibari was either extremely well-experienced in this or he had some mystical additional sense because he hit the same spot each and every time.

Gokudera had no idea if that was normal but he figured it might as well not be. So, he did the only thing he could do - he growled at Hibari to finally _get his hands on Gokudera's dick_.

The older boy obliged and firmly closed his fingers around Gokudera's hard-on. He had the impertinence to give Gokudera a wicked smile before he started stroking, not quite in time with his thrusts.

The tiny difference in timing was unbelievably enervating - but also highly effective. Within minutes Gokudera was as far as threatening to blow the reception room up again with the both of them still in there if need be if he didn't get to come right the fuck _now_.

And for once, they seemed to be working towards a common goal because the prefect's movements picked up speed. The double stimulation made the tips of Gokudera's fingers prickle as if they were coming back to life after having gone too sleep. It was the same feeling he got when he was facing someone in battle, explosives at the ready and intent to win.

It was a shared win this time. Gokudera's butt cheeks met the other boy's hips one more time before something came undone inside of him and heat was pooling in his groin as if he'd swallowed fire. His fingers and toes literally went numb as all his nerve endings seemed to concentrate on the incredible feeling of blessed release.

He tensed up, all conscious control over his muscles gone and along with it every coherent thought he still might have had.

And that was when Gokudera found out that he was the most quiet when he came. Despite all evidence to the contrary he'd provided earlier he didn't shout, scream or swear. He didn't even say Hibari's name. All he got out was a choked gasp before he involuntarily held his breath.

Seconds later he was faintly aware of sticky warmth filling him and when he forced his eyes open he almost couldn't believe why he had clenched them shut in the first place - because, when you stripped away the violence, the careless attitude and the psychosis that was certainly lurking underneath that calm surface, Hibari Kyouya was freaking beautiful.

Gokudera was certain that only few people actually got to see the notorious head prefect like this - and lived to tell the tale. In those precious moments when Hibari was lost in his own climax he was vulnerable and Gokudera couldn't help but wonder how one could not go insane when the cracks in one's front went as deep as this.

"Wow", Gokudera said after Hibari had slowly lowered himself to catch his breath, "you're actually kind of pretty when you're like this."

It earned him the punch in the side he probably deserved. But he could feel Hibari smiling against his chest.

It was a pity that he couldn't see it because it was quite possibly the first and only honest to god smile he would ever see on that face.

\---

"Gokudera?"

"Hn?"

"Gokudera."

The voice was way too soft to be Hibari's and, really, why should the head of the disciplinary committee be talking like the baseball freak? Come to think of it, why was he hearing the baseball freak?

"W-what...", Gokudera mumbled, not wanting to open his eyes just yet. He still had this distant afterglow-thing going on and he intended to hold on to it for as long as possible.

"Please don't freak out now but you're sleeping on the corridor again."

Gokudera's eyes snapped open. And indeed, he was blinking blearily at the plain walls of the school's corridor with one Yamamoto Takeshi slowly shifting into focus.

"No... No", Gokudera scrambled into a seating position, dragging the blanket with him, "nononoNO! Goddammit! He did it again!"

"Yeah...", Yamamoto's grin faltered a little, "Gokudera? Why are you naked?"

"Wha-", Gokudera looked down and discovered that, yes, he was (still) very much naked under the blanket. This was possibly the only moment in his life that he wished to have Mukuro's abilities - bodiless form and all.

"O-kay", Gokudera took a few calming breaths and scowled, "this motherfucker is _dead_."

\---

Of course, he didn’t kill Hibari – mainly because Yamamoto’s grip was stronger than expected. But it felt good to picture cruel deaths for the bastard anyway.

A few weeks later Gokudera finally caved and went to look for a new apartment, despite the repairs at his old one being in full swing.

They never talked about that night but Gokudera kept stopping by the school after dark and left boxes of sushi in front of the reception room. Maybe because old habits died hard. Or perhaps because he thought this connection to the Cloud Guardian was better than none.

The boxes were always gone the next day but after a while small packages of herbs and spices kept turning up in Gokudera’s locker.

And that was how Gokudera took up cooking as a hobby.


End file.
